Fox Valley Clutter Club – Unconventional Organizing

Read any article with tips for selling your home and the first things they tell you to do are clean and eliminate clutter. Showing a disorganized, cluttered home can give the potential buyers the feeling that the house is too small. "We'll never fit all our stuff in here!"

Defining clutter isn't always easy… Knick-knacks, trinkets, papers, clothes, arts & craft supplies, etc. All these things can give a home an unkempt appearance. Selling a home that is currently being lived in presents a handful of challenges, and I always think of a quote by one of my heroes, Ben Franklin, who said:

"A place for everything, everything in its place."

To me, this means sorting, organizing, and storing your stuff in a methodical manner, and keeping it out of the way wherever possible. In many situations, and for many people, this is much easier said than done. Some people just can't seem to find a way to get organized no matter what they try. This was the topic of the Fox Valley Clutter Club meeting hosted by Barb Gould of Bright Start Organizing held last night at the Batavia Public Library.

This is a fairly new club. I believe this was only the third meeting, but the turnout was good, and Barb really presented the information well. There are about a dozen or so "Clutter Clubs" that meet throughout the US. After the main presentation there was a Q&A session where people shared ideas and tips. I wanted to check out this club for two reasons really…

First, I can always use some help and ideas to keep my ever-growing piles of paper in order. I affectionately refer to this as a "paper fungus" growing on my desk! Secondly, as a Realtor I find myself parroting that same "Get rid of the clutter" advice and the groups gave me some good ideas for specific techniques to do just that.

The meeting covered some material from the book Conquering Chronic Disorganization by Judith Kolberg. Someone with chronic disorganization has usually struggled with trying to get organized most of their life, and their disorganization has had a negative impact on their quality of life.

Some people are "Situational disorganized", such as when a life changing event (having a baby, moving, divorce, needing to take in a loved one, etc) has caused someone to become disorganized worse than they normally are. Even if they were just generally disorganized before the event. People that have average disorganization tend to just be too busy, or are juggling too many projects and tasks to stay on top of things.

The book discussed gave some great ideas and techniques, or "games" that could be used to help start getting more organized, and the conversation and questions it raised I think would be pretty helpful to most people, even those that aren't considering selling their homes.